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South CarolinaPlaces

Union

City in Union County, 8,079 people.

Police

Sheriff in its county: Union County Sheriff's Office.

A department is the place's own when its name is the place's and its FBI population fits the place's people (decision city-or-town-is-its-police-department). Agencies: FBI NIBRS master file 2025 batch headers; names from the FBI agency list, pulled 2026-09-29.

Where it sits

People
8,079
Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024

How a case moves here

Union follows South Carolina law on arrests, release, and courts; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.

Who decides release first

A magistrate, or a municipal judge for city charges, sets bond at a hearing within 24 hours of arrest. Magistrates need not be lawyers. A magistrate can't set bail on a charge punishable by death or life in prison; a circuit judge does.

S.C. Code 22-5-510S.C. Code 17-15-10 and following
Time to see a judge

A person charged with a bailable offense must have a bond hearing within 24 hours of arrest, and the jail must release the person within four hours after the bond is delivered.

S.C. Code 22-5-510(B)
Money bail

Magistrates and judges may set cash or surety bonds. A person charged with a new violent offense while out on bond for one loses the first bond, and any new bond must be paid in full cash.

S.C. Code 17-15-10, 17-15-15, 17-15-55

Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Magistrates are called summary court judges, so setter_is_judge is "yes" though they need not be lawyers. Whether municipal or magistrate courts use a bail schedule for minor offenses was not found. How many counties have moved the jail from the sheriff to the county government was not counted.

Crime

Offenses reported by Union Police Department, Union's own department. The county sheriff and state police may answer calls here too; their offenses are on their own pages.

The crime index

Crime index offenses reported by Union Police Department, 2021 to 2025
Offense20212022202320242025Per 100kSouth Carolina
Violent crime56878377951,020460
Murder1123Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.8.9
Rape967658539
Robbery288101110038
Aggravated assault4473675976818373
Property crime4094446315354916,4352,130
Burglary67681281031031,202319
Larceny3193454683993544,8331,578
Motor vehicle theft2331353334400234
Arson3121Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.12

Outside the crime index

Offenses outside the crime index reported by Union Police Department, 2021 to 2025
Offense20212022202320242025Per 100kSouth Carolina
All offenses outside the crime index6998746746406529,0733,684
Simple assault and intimidation2724252682522563,7771,319
Vandalism1181321481271061,618606
Fraud5884486258795437
Drug abuse violations1761621601441712,084892
Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc.2434182228323176
Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing32526Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.69
Forgery and counterfeiting36171211921872
Embezzlement12Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.15
Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)99710710834
Prostitution and commercialized vice1Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.2.4
Other Group A offenses2789119560
Human trafficking (not in the total)1Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.0.7

Offenses Union Police Department reported to the FBI in incident detail (NIBRS), each year, the second table by the arrest class each offense falls in. Per 100k: offenses per 100,000 people the department polices, 2021 to 2025 added together, beside South Carolina's rate over the same years. – means too few for a rate: the count is under 20.

Source: FBI NIBRS national master files, each agency's offenses and the FBI's population for it. South Carolina: the crime index: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, CrimeDB's chosen value per year (the state page's figures); outside it: FBI NIBRS, agencies that sent incident detail.